Team:KU Leuven/Human Outreach/Education

Our goal was to get students in high school interested in science, synthetic biology and to tell them more about our project and the applications of synthetic biology. We went to and are going to several high schools in Flanders. 17th of September: Sint-Dimpnacollege, GEEL 23th of September: Sint-Lodewijkscollege, BRUGGE 15th of October: Campus Sint-Aloysois, ZEPPEREN 17th of October: Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege, DIEST Mid of October: Sint-Ritacollege, KONTICH

Presentation

Our workshop consists of a presentation, some exercises and an experiment at the end. We gave a presentation and a text for the students. You can find the presentation (in Dutch and English) and our text (in Dutch).

First of all, we give a short introduction about DNA and biochemistry. In general the students have already had an introduction to DNA in class, but it was still very new to them. Then, we talk about bacteria and which bacteria we use in the lab. We made a 3D-bacterial model. This model gives the students an idea what a bacterium looks like. The model was printed by Fablab and consists of 3 layers. Inside, there’s a representation of cytoplasm, plasmid and bacterial genome. Afterwards, we explain what synthetic biology and its applications are. We give the example of modified yeast that can produce artemisinin to treat malaria. After the introduction, we continue explaining our iGEM-project 2013. We explain the mechanisms and properties of our bacteria. We end the presentation with the ethical and social implications of synthetic biology in general and our project.

Exercises

After the presentation, we gave the students two exercises about building new systems with pieces of a puzzle. We made promoters, genes, regulators and proteins out of Plexiglas in different colours. First they had to make a system of a biosensor (iGEM-project of Groningen 2009). The biosensor can detect arsenic and the bacteria can absorb this arsenic out of the water. It’s a system to clean the water. Therefore you need a stimulator (arsenic) of an inducible promoter and a gene. The gene stands for a protein that helps with the production of hydrogen. In the second exercise, we offer our ED Frosti (iGEM project of KU Leuven 2011). ED Frosti can defrost ice and freeze water. We made a simplified system of ED Frosti, with two stimulators, three promoters, four genes and a feedback-loop.

Experiment

The experiment proves that genes are inducible. Bacteria can adapt to different circumstances. If there’s lactose in the environment, E. coli will produces b-galactosidase to hydrolyse the lactose. When there’s no lactose, b-galactosidase won’t be produced. We didn’t use lactose, but we used ONPG. ONPG is a substrate of b-galactosidase and will turn yellow after hydrolysis. The yellow colour is proof of the presence of b-galactosidase. We couldn’t use E. coli in the high-school because of the safety regulations. We explained the principle of inducible genes and showed the enzymatic reaction with b-galactosidase and ONPG. The students can do this experiment themselves and for the first time, they work with micropipettes.

Feedback from the schools

On the 17th of September, Flore and Sabine went to the Sint-Dimpnacollege. It was the first time we gave the workshops and everything went well. We gave the workshop three times to students in the sixth year of science-mathematics and latin-science. The students were enthusiastic and very interested. We got positive feedback from the teachers and students. (http://www.sdc.kogeka.be/nieuws/510/voorstelling-igem-project-door-studenten-ku-leuven) On the 23th of September, Lukas and Bert went to the Sint-Lodewijkscollege. They were also very enthusiastic and interested in synthetic biology and our project. We got a lot of good responses to our workshop. We also went to a European school. Aurelie and Lukas gave the workshop to a selection of international students. The students were from the Dutch, English and French section. Here we gave the presentation in English and they were also very enthusiastic.

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